Naples '44 (2016)

Francesco Patierno brings Norman Lewis' war diary to life in a feature documentary linking unique archive, with feature film footage and accompanied by the narration of Lewis' words made by Oscar Nominated British actor Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game, Black Mass, Sherlock). The documentary NAPLES'44, creates a contrast between extraordinary footage images, mostly unreleased before, and fascinating excerpts from famous films set in the city, to re-create for the audience, the authentic scenario that Lewis found when he arrived there. Lewis' masterpiece, full of such extraordinary images and characters, is a lyrical, ironic and detached account of Naples in the aftermath of war: a tempestuous, byzantine and opaque city massacred by a hundred air raids, in which working classes, artisans, office workers, teachers, lawyers, maids, judges and impoverished noblemen lived side by side in a throbbing and complex social melting pot. A Naples that has never been conveyed more vividly than by Norman Lewis' literary jewel.